Apple now second most powerful brand, behind Coke

Not that it should surprise anyone, but Apple is now officially ranked as the second most powerful brand in the world.That is the rating provided by Interbrand, which has released its 12th annual list of the top 100 brands on the planet.

Last year, it gave Apple a ranking of 8. This year, it pushed that up to the #2 slot, making Coca-Cola the only brand recognized as more powerful.

That means it shot ahead of IBM, Google, Microsoft, General Electric, McDonald's, and Intel.

It is no doubt because of the continued monstrous success of the iPhone brand that has vaulted Apple up so high.

And on the complete flip side is Research in Motion. Interbrand pushed the Blackberry phone brand all the way from #56 to #93. What once was the smartphone leader is now only barely managing to even be recognized on the report.

No doubt if the new Blackberry platform doesn't perform a miracle for RIM, it will likely not even get a spot on next year's list.

As for other movers and shakers, Samsung climbed from 17 to 9, Oracle went from 20 to 18, and Amazon jumped from 26 to 20. The two notable dips from the top 20 were HP going from 10 to 15, and Nokia dropping from 14 to 19.